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A new outpatient cancer center slated to open this fall in Woodbury, may be delayed for at least two years, should a bill making its way through the state Legislature be signed into law. In February, a coalition of health care companies including Allina Health Systems and Minnesota Oncology Hematology announced the new center would be located at the Cornerstone Medical development at Lake Road and Century Drive. The location happens to be very close to Woodwinds Hospital, which was one of many hospitals in the east metro who lobbied legislators to vote on a bill that will put a two-year mora

With a May 21 deadline for wrapping up work looming, there are signs of progress in the Minnesota Legislature. Some House-Senate conference committees are finishing work, sending budget bills to final votes. Each bill has passed in different versions in the Senate and House, and now the chambers are passing compromise bills. Negotiators on a bill funding many state government functions signed a deal to spend $551.7 million in the next two-year budget, about $30 million less than in the current budget.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau will celebrate the Minnesota Governor's Fishing Opener May 12 on Leech Lake. Chip Leer, one of the founders of "Fishing the WildSide," will guide Pawlenty and his wife, Mary. "I feel being asked to host the governor on opening day is a high honor, and with it comes quite the responsibility," Leer said. Al Maas, a guide in the Leech Lake area for more than 40 years, will guide Molnau. Maas was inducted into Minnesota Fishing Hall of Fame in 2000.

The Minnesota state auditor's office revealed Wednesday it won't pursue action against Duluth Mayor Herb Bergson for allegedly soliciting hundreds of free event tickets from organizers with whom the city had contracts. But instead of laying the ticket controversy to rest, deputy state auditor Celeste Grant's letter has raised further questions. In her four-page missive, Grant refers to a 2006 review her office performed on allegations that Bergson received free perks at the Monaco Air Duluth Airshow in July of that year.

Back in the 1970s, I received a phone call from the Style Section of the Washington Post. At the time I was teaching and doing a bit of freelance writing. The Style Section was a Big Deal, one of the leaders in the movement called "The New Journalism," of which I was trying to be a practitioner. Since then this movement has fallen into disfavor. In the story I'm about to tell, you'll discover why. What ensued was hilarious. The Style editor told me that he had read some of my work about upper Midwestern Scandinavians.